xiox writes: "Private Eye magazine contains a comprehensive report detailing the horrifying background to the wasting of £12.4 billion of public money on an unnecessary and useless central bureaucratic computer system for the UK's National Health Service. This could have paid for 26,000 doctors over 10 years. While the full report is not available online, NHS Blog Doctor details some of the findings.

Those of us working within the NHS have long been aware of the futility and waste of this IT system. The details that emerge from the Private Eye report reveal a tale of incompetence and greed that beggars belief. Incompetence on the part of the government, and greed on the part of some of the contractors, two of whom are named by the report. Both made personal profits of over £20 million on the back of inflated share sales and illusory profits generated by Enron style accounting.